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Haeckel’s Bogus Embryo Drawings

Showtime Networks will air filmmaker Randy Olson’s fanciful evolution film Flock of Dodos, apparently not realizing that key parts of the film are so wildly inaccurate that they amount to a hoax.

Flock of Dodos makes a number of false assertions about scientists and institutions researching the theory of intelligent design, and has drawn fire from scientists and scholars for its misrepresentations and outright inventions. Discovery’s Center for Science & Culture (CSC) has launched a webpage, hoaxofdodos.com, detailing the false facts in the film.

Perhaps the most outlandish error is the claim that modern biology textbooks have not used illustrations derived from Ernst Haeckel’s fraudulent 19th century embryo drawings as evidence for evolution. Olson tries to convince viewers that critics of Darwin’s theory have been lying when they claim these drawings are in textbooks. But it turns out that he’s the one telling fibs.